Christopher Moore's Blog

So, for Fathers’ Day I walked from the Bay Bridge to Fisherman’s Wharf, where I was going to buy crab meat for a salad, but I forgot. I did look at art. I looked at the piece of a welded metal mother and daughter, which they brought in from Burning Man and installed on the Embarcadero; I photographed a morning moon over the Transamerica Pyramid, then Coit Tower, I saw a building that has a four-story bronze monolith in the lobby — so you could kind of do your own 2001 Space Odessy right outside your apartment if you wanted. I looked at paintings and photographs at the Embarcadero Weekend Art Market, and then I went to the Safeway and bought greens, but I did not buy crab meat. I forgot, and I walked back to the Bay Bridge, where we’re staying temporarily. (All Troll Apartments)

Then we drove over the Bay Bridge to see a play, and we got there early, because Charlee thought we might get lost, and there was some kind of festival going on in Berkeley, with a bunch of African Americans drumming and selling African stuff and it was like a big Black flea market. Occasionally some woman would jump in the middle of the drumming circle, and just dance her ass off, and then she wouldn’t. It was very spontaneous and rhythmic and real — and when each round sort of wound down, the drummers seemed to show all manner of expression on their faces, from bliss to anger — as if the drums had dropped them off in different neighborhoods and they’d all been to different parties, despite sharing the same rhythm for the whole time.

Then we went to see King Lear, put on by the Shotgun Players — and it had that sort of "Yes, he plays Cornwall and builds the sets and takes the tickets" feel of a small theater group, and you know what? It fucking rocked! They were so good, and the play was so good, and the language was so good — I was absolutely transported. And because it was Fathers’ Day, it turned out to be sort of an ironic comedy instead of a tragedy.

And I’m sharing this, because I normally don’t do these, "Guess what I did today" entries, because I was just sort of joyous in all the creativity that I saw around me, the beauty, yes, but just the joy of creation — I get that way some times, after spending hours in a great art museum — after a while I start seeing art in everything, I start seeing it in a composition, an image, a juxtaposition, in how an old lady eats her green beans.

That was yesterday.

Today I moved everything I own with three Samoans who were twice my size and half my age, and I’m still buzzing from the art yesterday, even though my hands are cramping so badly I can barely type and my back feels like I’ve been beaten with a baseball bat.

It occurrs to me, that most of the stuff we moved, and there was a metric shitload of stuff, was marked either "office" or "kitchen", and hardly any of it was marked, "bedroom". We spend nearly a third of our life sleeping, but it requires almost no equipment. Are we more perfect when we sleep? Is there something to be said for the lack of device required to put together the stuff from which dreams are made? Hmmmm… I’ll ponder it.

In Dirty Job I use the phrase, "art happens" a couple of time, and I realize, now, that where art happens is in the mind. Art is the temple we build to imagination, and I guess, by seeing the skill and passion that others put into their art, it gives us a glimpse of the god in us all. Who knows, I’m just happy to be here, where people are thinking and creating, and the state of mind it’s putting me in makes me feel like the universe is ringing my bell.